his guard -was that she seemed to be as entranced as he was. She just stared at him, quite openly, fascinated.
'What's that smell?' she asked him as soon as she walked into the room. Walking over to Alex she sniffed at him.
'It's on your hands,' she stated.
'A
kind of burnt...' She pressed his fingers to her nose and then touched her face to his hair.
'But you don't smoke, do you?' she murmured from behind his ear.
'It's gunpowder residue,' said Alex, realising what she was referring to.
'Cordite. You get it from using firearms in an enclosed space.
'You've been killing people again,' said Stella disapprovingly.
'Honestly, you boys!'
Alex smiled.
'Just trying out some new toys on the range.'
'As one does,' said Stella's boyfriend.
'What sort?'
'Moorsyth .50 super-magnum,' said Alex.
'Ah.' The boyfriend was clearly none the wiser.
'Right.'
'Let's eat,' said Stella.
After dinner they split up. Spooning the sugar crystals from the bottom of her coffee cup, Sophie announced her desire that Alex take her for a walk. It was a warm evening, the streets, the caf&s and the pavements were crowded, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world that she should take his arm so as to avoid their becoming separated. At one moment, outside a noisy Portobello Road pub, she stopped in her tracks and turned to face him, placing her hands on his shoulders. When he met her gaze, however, she smiled enigmatically and moved on.
Ten minutes later she suddenly dived into a bar. It was tiny, the walls were yellowed with cigarette smoke and hung with ancient photographs of boxers and foot ballers
'Quick!' she told the barman.
'We need some malt whisky. Hurry, it's an emergency.
'Do you always get what you want?' asked Alex as the waiter placed two tumblers of Laphroaig in front of them.
She frowned. The whisky made its smoky way down their throats.
'I think .. . pretty much always,' she admitted.
'What about you?'
'It's a long time since I've wanted anything as badly as ..
She reached for his thigh under the table.
'Do you want me ... badly?'
'Yes,' said Alex.
Her eyes shone and she compressed her lips with pleasure.
They had finished their drinks and crossed Notting Hill Gate into Kensington Church Street. There, as if at a prearranged signal, both had raised their arms to the same cruising taxi.
In the back, ignoring the seat belts, he put his arm round her shoulders and she kissed his neck before moulding herself warmly against him. Taking his other hand, she placed it on her breast and he felt the nipple harden beneath his probing fingers.
'Mmm!' she murmured.
Laughing, but their movements urgent now, they ran up the stairs to her flat. They had kissed as soon as the door had closed behind them a long kiss, but one which swiftly proved to be less than either of them wanted or needed.
She led him inside, somehow managing to un belt him and to remove her blue silk top as she went. An antique velvet-covered sofa offered itself, and by then she was unzipping and stepping out of her skirt. His hand moved to the damp triangle between her legs, hers to the zip of his trousers. He sat back and she lowered herself gratefully on to him, gasping as she felt him thrust hard inside her. Her back arched and her hair fell away from the pale oval of her face.
'I
can still smell the gunpowder,' she gasped and drove herself against him, hot and wet, clenching and releasing, rising and falling.
SIX.
Sleepily, Alex reached for her. Eyes closed, he allowed his fingers a lazy exploration of her body, felt the desire stir inside him once more.
But Sophie seemed to have changed. Her breasts, for a start, were very much larger and heavier than he remembered, and were now suspended in a loose nylon bra and resting against several warm rolls of flesh. The smell in his nostrils was not that of Guerlain perfume and expensive hairdressing but of sweat, airline cooking and recycled air.
Cautiously he opened an eye. The face that lay inches from his and the breast that he was fondling belonged to his fellow passenger from Banjul, Maureen. And it was Maureen's hand which was firmly cupping his crotch.
'You certainly do like big girls, don't you,' she whispered hungrily. Her fingers tightened round him.
'In fact you're quite a big boy yourselfl' Alex stared at her. The whites of her eyes had a yellowish cast to them, as did her teeth. A centimetre of grey showed at the roots of her hennaed hair. In the opposite aisle, one of the few other male passengers on the flight caught his eye and gave him a leery wink.
'A little bird tells me that you and I are about to join the mile-high club,' she whispered.
Alex struggled upright.
'That little bird is wrong,' he said, searching his memory for the woman s name.
I'm sorry, I've I've been asleep.'
She looked at him quizzically.
'You seemed so ..
'I was dreaming,' he said firmly.
'Of my girlfriend.'
'Ah,' she said, drawing herself upright and pulling an in-flight magazine from the back of the seat in front.
'I see.'
Every detail of her deportment spelt hurt and disappointment emotions to which Alex guessed she was no stranger.
He glanced at his watch: 2.45 p.m. London time.
Three bloody hours to go. He felt stale and overtired.
Whatever was waiting for him at the other end had to be an improvement on this.
Three men were waiting for him.
They were standing with one of the Customs officers at the EU citizens' immigration desk. One, in a shiny blazer and slacks, looked like a run-to-seed bodybuilder. Salaried muscle, thought Alex. Exsquaddie, 18K and a clothing allowance. The second, a florid-faced figure in a Barbour coat, had the tired, tolerant gaze of the time- serving civil servant. The third, a younger and more military-looking figure in a Brigade of Guards tie and a velvet- collared coat, Alex vaguely recognised. Box, he thought.
MIS.
'Captain Temple,' asked the younger man.
'Could you step this way, sir?'
They hurried him into the Customs offices, down a flight of stone stairs and out into a car park where they convened round a nearly new Ford Mondeo.
'Alex, isn't it?' said the man in the velvet-collared coat.
'Gerald Farmilow. We met at Thames House.
